


Only Pawns

by valentangelo



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Drama & Romance, Other, Physical Abuse, Post-Canon, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-08 21:34:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5514167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valentangelo/pseuds/valentangelo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the destruction of the Starkiller, a humiliated Kylo Ren is on his way to finish his Sith training when he and his mentor Snoke sense the awakening of another force user. Snoke sends Ren after her, warning him that if she has a stronger connection to the Dark Side she will take Ren's place as the figurehead of the First Order.</p><p>The savvy Iona isn't interested in the ways of the Sith, but she is fascinated by the strange and mercurial, but obviously sheltered, Kylo Ren, who takes her on as his protege in preparation for their upcoming challenge. But as they grow closer, the two realize that they're entangled in a web far more complicated than either of them was prepared for. Soon, each of them has a real choice to make about their own entwined fates - and the fate of the galaxy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Awakening

**Author's Note:**

> This is a novel-in-progress that I'm hoping to put here in as polished a form as possible. Updates may be few and far between, but for now I'm maintaining as steady a workflow as possible during my winter break.
> 
> Updates may also come in the form of additions to chapters, rather than new chapters! Because much of this story is broken into scenes, I may add scenes to a short chapter rather than starting a new one as I continue to write. The goal is to update the fic as regularly as possible, even if I can only manage small amounts of text at a time.

 

In a dark corner of the Star Destroyer, Kylo Ren held Darth Vader’s helmet in his gloved hands and brooded.

He saw the look on his father’s face as he died, played out again and again - a look of compassion. Ren hated it. In that look he saw that Han Solo still believed in his son.

Ren had wanted to hurt him. He had wanted Solo’s hope to die with him, and it hadn’t. It was pathetic. It was pathetic how his father lived in denial, so arrogant, sure that his precious boy was just waiting to return to him. Ren bared his teeth in frustration.

But it wasn’t really about Solo - no. Men like him lied to themselves all the time. But Kylo Ren, master of the First Order, terror of the galaxy, must be honest with himself.

Han Solo’s death had changed nothing.

He could feel the waste of it gnawing at him. In preparing to kill his father, Ren had guarded against the weaknesses of guilt and grief, but he was not prepared for this deep and echoing emptiness. He had railed against it. He had welcomed pain and used it to increase his power, just as he had been taught. He had fought - he touched the deep burn on his face, a gnarled scar that sealed his blinded eye shut. To think that a novice had bested him, a weak-minded and fragile girl! To think he had let her win! He had been weak! With a cry he leapt to his feet, unsheathed his lightsaber and brought it crashing through his chair with a wide, curving swing. But looking at the mangled wreckage, he felt no pulsing surge of fury, no power - only bitterness.

Then, in a rush, he felt something else.

***

Iona raced through the streets of Bak-Tar in a panic, a lumpy package cradled against her chest. What had she been thinking, listening to Tam? She didn’t steal for fun! In a haze of adrenaline she flung herself around a corner and into an alleyway, ducking behind a rancid pile of trash and crouching low, taking deep breaths to get her thoughts under control. Well, she thought finally, there was no going back now. It wasn’t like she could return this damn thing. She smirked at the idea. Regrets meant nothing in Bak-Tar.

Iona cursed her bad judgment. Why hadn’t she gone for something less conspicuous? If she hadn’t singled out this...whatever-it-was, right under the trader’s nose, she might never have been spotted. And it certainly didn’t look like anything special. But when Tam dared her to grab something from the greasy trader’s ship she had taken one look and locked onto it. She remembered him yelling after her, alarmed, as she leapt right at the trader, scooped up the ragged package, and ran. Actually, she thought, he had probably provided the perfect distraction.

She ran into him again just a few twists and turns from home.

“Iona!”

“There you are!” Iona grinned at Tam, feeling the thrill of her success.

“What were you thinking?”

He was angry. After daring her to do something stupid, after she’d done it and gotten away with it, he was angry at her!

“Sorry, did you forget _you_ gave me a dare?”

“I didn’t tell you to steal something right in front of that guy’s face!” He grabbed for her arm. “Come on. We’ve gotta get home.”

Iona pulled away, insulted. “I’m getting there in my own sweet time.”

“Iona - “ Tam moved to seize her hand again.

“I’m _fine!_ ” she exclaimed.

He glared at her, trying to find a response.

“Fine,” he said finally, disgusted. “Do whatever you want.” He turned around and stalked away.

Iona almost followed him, but what good would it do? When Tam was in a mood like this, there was nothing to do but wait. And it was his fault she took a risk like that anyway! He was the daredevil. Iona just did what she had to. She scoffed. He was probably jealous she’d pulled it off. Well, he wasn’t the only one who could get out of a tight spot.

Iona stopped, realizing what she was thinking. That wasn’t fair. Tam cared about her. Of course he was worried - he had a right to be upset.

But...she didn’t want to see him just yet. He was probably still angry at her, anyway...what a mess. With a sigh she turned away from home. Wandering the maze of the Bak-Tar ghetto usually cleared her head, and Tam - well, Tam could just stew, she thought with a last flash of spite. As she wended her way through the dirty streets, Iona’s pace slowed to a meandering crawl. Night was falling, the city growing quiet, and though Iona was wary of being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, there was something peaceful in the way the cooling air ruffled her black hair. In the dark, it was easier to see the stars and harder to see the filth that surrounded her...if you looked up, you could almost feel the galaxy embracing you in its sparkling arms. Iona let herself relax into that image, focusing on the beauty of the night, and then in an instant she was dragged back to earth by the sight of a monster.

She was back around the corner in a fraction of a second, paralyzed with terror. A police droid? _Here?_ Could it - no. She shook her head. That was stupid, to think that a machine of that caliber would be after a petty thief. She had to think. She fought against the wave of panic that had sent her heart leaping into her throat. The thing couldn’t have seen her, she told herself. There was no way. But there was no question she wanted to be as far away from a thing like that as possible, and back at home. All right. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath to steel her nerves, and bolted.

Somehow, when her whole body seized up, jerking her to a gut-wrenching stop mid-run, she wasn’t surprised at all.

She tried to move again, but she was frozen in place, still clutching that stupid parcel. Damn it! _Damn it!_

She was dead. She was going to die today, of all days, because Tam gave her a dare and she took it too far. She struggled uselessly against her own paralyzed muscles and held back a sob.

The droid’s voice behind her, hissing slightly with static, was surprisingly deep.

“How pathetic. You thought you could run?”

The sob escaped, humiliatingly.

The droid made a noise of disgust. “Of course you did,” it said scornfully. A heavy hand gripped the collar of her vest.

“But nobody runs from me.”

***

Iona huddled on the floor of the small fighter craft, struggling to understand what was happening to her. She had been dragged through empty streets all the way to the brightly-lit square while she struggled to keep the droid's grip on her collar from choking her. The trader had been there...when he caught sight of her terrified face, illuminated by a greasy streetlamp, he had launched himself at her with a bellow, and before he moved three feet the droid had sent him hurtling into a wall. That was when she realized. The droid wasn’t in his employ. It wasn’t interested in her thievery.

Iona had no idea what mess she’d gotten herself into.

She stole a fearful glance at her silent kidnapper. She had never seen anyone use the Force - certainly not a droid. But Vader had been a droid, hadn’t he? She had always wondered who had built him, how he had come into power. What a strange idea, being ruled by a robot with a grudge.

“What are you staring at?”

Iona nearly jumped out of her skin. “Nothing!” She turned away hurriedly, pulling her knees to her chest as she leaned against the metal side of the ship.

She thought about Tam.

They often met at nights. From Iona’s roof the whole galaxy was spread out above them. Tam wanted to explore it someday. He wanted adventure. He might even be jealous of her now, if he knew where she was...but he didn’t. People disappeared all the time in the slums of Bak-Tar. That’s why she and Tam had promised to protect each other - and here, with her stupid pride, she’d gotten herself in a position even he couldn’t get her out of.

Iona wondered what in the galaxy was going to happen to her.

She bit her lip and tried to keep from crying.

***

“What’s your name?” the droid asked after a long silence.

“Who wants to know?” she asked the floor dully. What a dumb way to start a conversation. She was so tired, her back stiff from sitting so long. Who has a lighthearted chat with their hostage, anyway?

The droid rose suddenly, towering over her. Its voice was menacing.

“Kylo Ren wants to know.”

Iona knew who Kylo Ren was. Of course she did. He was a man so powerful, she thought bitterly, that he could send Force-capable war droids to kidnap random civilians from the Bak-Tar ghetto.

“Tell Kylo Ren I’ll tell him in person,” she snarled at it, and it took a step back. “And he can tell me why the First Order doesn’t have better things to do than go after petty thieves.”

“Oh, you’re a thief, are you?”

“Is that _not_ why I’m now careening through the emptiness of space?”

The droid made an impatient noise.

“So you stole it,” it said after a moment.

“Stole what?” Iona asked, baring her teeth aggressively.

“You probably don’t even know what it is. How stupid. You have no idea what that thing can do.”

“I am not stupid!” Iona exploded. She caught herself, just barely, realizing she was being baited. “I could take you apart and rebuild you if I wanted to,” she muttered.

“Take me apart?” The droid’s tone was unreadable, but a question was a good sign. It wanted more information. It wasn’t prepared for her to say what she’d said.

“Sure,” she pressed on. “Rewire your circuits. Maybe I’d make you dance.” She bared her sharp teeth in a threatening grin, getting ready to enjoy the effect of the lie.

“Rewire - _who do you think you’re talking to?!_ ”

Iona was caught off guard by the bot’s seeming rage. “A war bot?” she hazarded uncertainly. “One of Kylo Ren’s police droids, or…”

The thing slammed an armored fist into the metal above Iona’s head and put its blank black face terrifyingly close to hers.

“You stupid, puny creature! I _am_ Kylo Ren!”

***

If Iona had been bewildered before, she was now utterly lost. What did Kylo Ren, master of the First Order, want with her that had to be handled personally? She cringed at the figure looming over her, at a loss for how to respond. Ren suddenly pulled away from the wall, reaching for his helmet. Iona watched with fascination as he unfastened the close-fit headgear, wondering what such an imposing character would look like in person.

She was shocked when the armored visage gave way to the face of a boy not much older than her, his pallor stark against a mane of coal-black hair. His features were striking, his face marred by a long, reddish scar. He tossed the helmet aside and regarded her imperiously.

“My mentor wants me to train you. I don’t know why. You’re just a weak, petty thief. But what Snoke wills, I do.”

“Excuse you,” snorted Iona, “‘train’ me? To lick your boots?”

A spasm of annoyance crossed Ren’s face and he glared at her. “It is my duty now,” he recited, “to train you in the ways of the Sith. If you succeed in your training and grow powerful - ” his expression grew even more bitter - “you will take my place at the head of the First Order.

“If you fail, or turn to the Light Side...you will be disposed of.”

“That’s stupid!” Iona cried. “The Sith are all Force users, what am I supposed to do?”

Ren looked taken aback, she thought, an expression which soon gave way to amusement.

“You really don’t know what you’ve stolen, do you?” he asked smugly.

“Does it matter? It’s obvious this isn’t about what I took.”

Kylo Ren frowned at her, looking thoughtful. “Hm. Not exactly. But…” he seemed to make up his mind about something.

“Give me the parcel.”

“No!” Iona clutched it closer, glaring at him. With a huff of frustration and a motion of his arm she found the thing jerked out of her hands. The sensation she experienced as it left her possession was startlingly painful, like being kicked in the stomach, and she let out a yelp.

Ren only smirked at her. As he unrolled the dirty cloth with obvious panache, Iona couldn’t help her curiosity. A sleek silver cylinder fell into Kylo Ren’s black-gloved hand, and she made a tiny sound of awe.

The thing in his hand, the thing she had stolen in a moment of recklessness, the thing that had gotten her into this mess - it was a lightsaber.


	2. Mind Control

Iona couldn’t take her eyes off it. The feeling that had made her latch onto the saber in the first place was amplified tenfold without a covering to suppress it. Everything about it was perfect. Even the way it caught the light was softer than the insectlike sheen of Kylo Ren’s imposing armor.

She wanted it.

She was startled when, all of a sudden, she had it.

Iona looked blankly at her outstretched hand, at the outraged Kylo Ren, his face twisted with fury. She opened her mouth to say something and instead gave a yell. Holding the lightsaber was like taking hold of the wires that topped some industrial fences; Iona couldn’t hold on, but she couldn’t let go, her muscles refusing to respond. She felt her whole arm seize up around the weapon. Its sleek surface had seemed welcoming, but the feeling of the energy now coursing through her wasn’t welcoming at all.

Kylo Ren’s voice cut through the fog of pain.

“This is the first test.

“You have to welcome the pain. Accept it. Feel its power.”

Iona knew she was never meant to come in contact with such power.

“It’s not the saber,” he continued, agonizingly calm. “It’s you. The saber is only a channel. You have to make it respond to you.”

Iona latched onto his voice like a lifeline, her breath shallow with panic.

“ _Breathe!_ ” he shouted at her furiously. “You stupid girl! _Breathe!_ ”

Iona was on her feet in an instant, full of furious energy. “ _I told you I’m not stupid!”_ she shrieked, right in his smug face, with his gleaming black armor and his fighter ship, the spoiled, arrogant boy who had taken her away from everything she knew. She wanted an answer, not a meaningless answer, not some trash about Force powers and the First Order. “ _What is going on?!_ ”

“Amazing,” he said, looking alarmed but unafraid. Iona thought she might hit him.

“‘Amazing?’” she repeated, feeling that the scorn in her voice was enough to level him, but he looked impressed, even excited. She was shocked when he took her chin in one hand, examining her face up close. But she found she couldn’t resist his imperious force of will. All she could do was give him a threatening hiss. He took no notice.

“You’ll do,” he was saying. “More powerful than _her..._ you’ll be worth training.

“Give me the saber and sit down.”

“No,” said Iona. “It’s mine.” She felt the pull of his will against hers, but on the saber she refused to budge. He released her face with a huff of frustration.

“Fine. You’ll have to learn to be obedient. I have enough patience for that.” He turned away, releasing his hold on her mind.

Iona slumped back to the floor. She clung to the lightsaber protectively, never taking her narrowed eyes off him until the small fighter docked.

***

Kylo Ren’s heavy boots clicked authoritatively on the floor of the wide hallway that led away from the docking bay. It was weird, how everything that now surrounded Iona seemed calculated to impress - Ren’s armor, his loud boots, the silver-gray, many-paneled walls around her. Not that it wasn’t working. Her heart clenched and shuddered with anxiety as she clung to Ren like a shadow, casting wide-eyed looks at the small groups of white-armored soldiers that marched through the maze of passages inside this massive ship.

“You’ll have quarters near mine,” Ren said as he strode ahead of her. “There is an arena close by where the Stormtroopers train to maintain their fighting capabilities. I’ve seen to it that it is empty for the purposes of your training.”

He turned to her abruptly, the blankness of his mask still disconcerting. “You’re a mess.”

He gestured to a door that opened automatically to reveal a small, dark-walled room. “A trooper will be here shortly with bedding and new clothes. He will lead you to the showers. Do not speak to him.” Ren jerked his head, silently ordering Iona inside. She stepped into the small chamber as the door shut, sealing her in.

The door opened again a few minutes later, ushering in two robotic white-clad drones. Iona wondered if they were droids, but she remembered Ren’s admonition and she had no idea what might happen if she asked. She simply followed one out the door when it summoned her with a motion of its head while the other began shaking out bedding. It seemed odd that anyone would have to wear armor under such mundane circumstances, and just as odd to have a battle droid making beds. She couldn’t make head nor tail of the world she’d been thrown into.

She supposed she might have expected to be in awe of their showers.

***

There was something strangely evocative about the feeling of hot water against Iona’s bare skin. In her home in Bak-Tar, there was one cramped room for washing and waste. A pipe as old as the galaxy itself pumped rusty, unheated water through a spigot suspended from the ceiling while you hurried to scrub yourself with ancient soap so crusted over that it refused to lather. This shower was a tiny self-contained room with a drain in the center. The trooper who escorted Iona in pointed out the knobs which changed the temperature of the water, the soap and a different soap for hair, and a hook on the outside where a cloth hung for her to dry herself. Then it turned its back while she rushed to strip down and step into the little room, feeling exposed. But once the water hit her skin, she could have stayed in there for hours.

She leaned against the wall, feeling the heat and the caress of a thousand tiny droplets as they teased out the tension from her back. She reminded herself that there was a trooper waiting for her - not to mention an angry Sith - but it was impossible to go about the chore of washing herself any way but lazily. At last, reluctantly, she turned off the stream of water, hurrying to dry and dress herself the moment cold air hit her.

Even the clothes she’d been provided were foreign. They reminded her of Ren’s: heavy, close-fitting black pants and shirt, a dark gray belted robe, and a pair of black boots that resembled her own prized pair, fished out of a trash pile years ago and worn till they were falling apart. Iona wondered how they had found shoes that would fit her...she eyed the trooper’s boots. Under the white armor they were identical. A lot of troops meant a lot of boots, she thought - they must carry extras.

Kylo Ren was sitting with his back to the entrance when they reached the training arena. Iona looked at the trooper for some sign as to how to approach him, but it merely shrugged.

“Sit down,” said Ren, before she could decide what to do.

She started to take a seat. “Not there. Come closer.” She stepped forward hesitantly. “Stop. Sit down. Legs crossed. Close your eyes, don’t speak, don’t move.” Iona cast one more look at the trooper. “ _Now!_ ”

Hurriedly, she sat.

“You will empty your mind. No thought or emotion is acceptable here. I need a blank slate.”

 _He_ needed a blank slate? Iona tried to quell the anxiety brought on by that idea. Instead, she thought of her favorite, sparkling view of the galaxy, as vast as she was small. It was a view she could always get lost in...until Tam jabbed her with an elbow.

“Are you listening?”

“Sorry!” She laughed. “It’s just so beautiful I get distracted.”

He pouted. “You could just come up here on your own.”

“Tam! Come on, you know I want you here...don’t you think the stars are pretty?” She gestured at the sweeping expanse of sky above them, giving him a pleading look.

He sighed.

“Sure. They’re beautiful. C’mere.” He pulled her to his side and she wrapped her arms around him, relaxing into his touch as they gazed up at the sparkling night sky.

“Pathetic,” said Ren’s voice. Iona came out of her reverie like a sleeper woken suddenly.

“What happened?” she gasped.

“You gave me a memory. You’d do well to eliminate your attachment to this ‘Tam.’ Attachments - affections - they create weakness, make your mind easier to fathom.”

“You were _reading my mind?!”_

“Of course. Nothing is private between master and student - unless you can hide it from me. From now on I am your first adversary. It is your job to become strong enough to match me.

“Clear your mind again.”

Iona didn’t know how to clear her mind without summoning a memory. She reached out for the same stars, but they no longer gave her comfort. The idea that her mind could be reached into and turned inside out by some all-powerful stranger was too much to distract herself from, until she focused on a single point of light in her memorized sky, letting the brightness of it grow and consume her. She was a sun, burning away whatever approached. Her anger strengthened the idea.

“Good,” said Ren, surprising her.

“Anger is what gives us our strength. In anger we turn away from fear - we take our fear and mold it into aggression, into power.

“This is enough for today. You may go.”

Iona opened her eyes and started, realizing he had moved to sit across from her, his impassive masked face staring into her own. She stood up awkwardly and backed away before turning to leave.

She thought she had never hated someone so much.

***

In the routine that Iona soon fell into, three places ruled: her room, the arena, and the showers. She sat turning the stolen lightsaber over in her hands for hours every morning and long into the night, trying to understand what it wanted from her. It was a strange idea - but it really did seem to be making some demand, in a language Iona couldn’t understand. The way the lightsaber spoke to her in her imagination was never so cruel and dismissive as Ren’s attitude when they trained. He could never go a session without abusing her in some way. When he introduced telekinesis, a stupidly long word for moving objects with the Force, he demonstrated by throwing her into a wall.

Then he did it again and again for days, shouting at her to resist, to make use of her fear, that she was pathetic and stupid and weak, before dismissing her to bathe and nurse her wounds.

In the shower, she cried.

Iona told herself at first that she didn’t know what Ren wanted from her, but it wasn’t long before she had to acknowledge that was a lie. He wanted her to meet cruelty with ruthlessness. He did keep telling her, after all, the same thing over and over again. Feed rage with fear. Feed hate with rage. What a stupid philosophy! But she could do it, and it worked. One time she had slammed him into the ground headfirst, bloodying his nose and splitting his lip. She had held him there until he declared himself satisfied and dismissed her, and then she had fled.

Iona feared what Ren wanted her to become. Would rage and hatred help that? And so after every lesson she took refuge in the hot water and sobbed until she shook, trying to find a way out, and always, always missing Tam. He would know what to do. It was all she could think of as she wandered the twisting hallways of her drifting prison, like an antiseptic echo of the busy streets she once called home. _What would Tam do?_ But she couldn’t figure it out, because she wasn’t Tam, daredevil Tam with his schemes and his ambition.

The Stormtroopers always gave her a wide berth. She wondered why.

***

Ren was seated when Iona entered the arena, his helmet off and by his side.

“Sit down.”

Warily, she sat.

“Your body has been weakening. Why is that?”

“Why do you think?”

“Answer.”

Iona bit back a hiss. “You’ve been _throwing me.”_

“That’s correct. Your progress has not been satisfactory. It’s clear I didn’t effectively strengthen your mind before beginning your physical training.

“Let me make one more thing clear. You treat this like a game. It is not. You are very close to proving to me that training you isn’t worth my time. If that happens, if I can find no use for you, you _will_ be disposed of. I’ve already warned you once.

“Clear your mind. This time, I’m not holding back.”

In the days he had spent bludgeoning her consciousness with his, Iona had finally learned one way to keep Ren at bay: she focused on him. The day that she learned this was the day he had moved on to a different part of her training, a fact she had assumed was because she had performed satisfactorily.

But as she met his gaze, the fear that radiated from him struck her like a slap in the face. Maybe, she thought, there was another reason she hadn’t had a lesson of this kind for so long. The implications were overwhelming. Ren had always pushed her to resist him, to turn inward and find refuge in some abstraction, something detached from her memories and strong enough to keep another mind at bay.

The idea that she could turn his trick back on him instead shook her so that she lost her grip on his consciousness.

Ren stood immediately, his face visibly strained before he turned his back to her.

“That’s good enough for today. You’re dismissed.”

***

“Why can’t I speak to your Stormtroopers?” Iona asked one day. She had been saving up the question, building up the courage to ask it.

“They’re not ‘my’ Stormtroopers.”

“They take orders from you.”

Ren’s face was bitter. “Barely.”

Iona waited.

“Well?” she said finally. “Why not?”

“Why don’t they take orders from me?”

She hissed with frustration. “It’s not my problem that your troops are disloyal. Why can’t I speak to them?”

“Why would you want to?”

“You won’t talk to me. There’s no one else here. I have questions I need answered, and I need some way to fill the time - “

“I thought I told you to let go of that weakness. Those mindless drones are beneath you. You’ll have to learn to be your own company if you want to be powerful.”

Iona straightened up as tall as she could, trying to ignore the impossibility of matching Ren’s impressive stature. She looked him in the eye.

“Are you good company for yourself, Kylo Ren?”

It was obvious that she had caught him off guard. That was all the response she needed.

She turned on her heel and swept out of the arena.

What she wanted to do next, she thought, would take even more courage than confronting Ren. She had never seen the faces that may or may not lie behind the grimacing helmets of the Stormtroopers, but she needed help. Her saber was getting impatient, and she still didn’t know what it wanted. She stopped at her room to fetch it before moving on through the hallways of the Star Destroyer.

When she came across a group of Stormtroopers she stopped right in front of them and held out a hand.

“Request information,” she said, making her voice as clipped and military as possible. She had recited this conversation in her head a hundred times.

The troopers in front of her hesitated visibly.

“What is it?” asked the one in front at last.

“I have a weapon in need of modification for the purposes of my training. Where can I go to find someone with the necessary expertise?”

The troopers turned towards each other in silent conference. Then one stepped forward.

“You can come with me.”


	3. Weaponry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello readers!  
> This is just a heads up. I had originally intended to include sexual content in this work, but as it's developing I've decided to develop a different (hopefully better) storyline. I'm not sure whether there will be any romance; I'm still looking to see where it goes. I hope you're all still enjoying what I've decided to do! :)

Walking side-by-side with a Stormtrooper made it easy to realize they couldn’t possibly be droids. They moved like people do, sometimes chafing against their armor, and although Iona could feel her companion eyeing her warily she could sense that they were adjusting, slowly, to her presence. She put a hand on the saber clipped to her belt, almost to reassure her it was there, and smiled. She had tested a theory about it a while ago, taking it with her on one of her lonely wanderings - it had increased her sensitivity, made her aware of things she couldn’t usually perceive. It wasn’t a matter of focus, she thought. A street rat like her had to notice more than a snob like Kylo Ren seemed to think. But the saber sharpened her instincts in a way that turned certain ideas - usually only inklings - into obvious facts. Like the fact that the Stormtroopers already liked her more than they let on.

They were leading her to the underbelly of the craft, where the showers were. On such a large vessel she’d known there must be more down here, but Iona had never seen it. She craned her neck curiously to see over the shoulders of the troopers, but it was hard to get a sense of where she was with her limited frame of reference. She realized they were headed into an area far less immaculate than the rest of the ship. Some of the lights which lined the hallway were out, the metal along the walls and floor smudged with grime. Iona felt the Stormtrooper tense before they stopped.

“The weapons specialist is through the next door on your right…He doesn’t like to have his time wasted. Be careful.”

With that admonition the trooper simply turned around and walked back down the dim hallway. Gripping the hilt of her lightsaber, Iona made her way to the door and stepped through.

***

The room was dimly lit by just a single suspended light. Iona’s eyes adjusted fast to darkness, but before she had quite got her bearings a voice growled at her from the semi-shadows.

“Don’t you know how to knock?”

Iona jumped.

“What do you want? It better be quick.”

The creature behind the work table was unfamiliar to her, a mass of muscle, four-armed, with wet-looking reddish skin. He working on something, a blaster of some kind.

“It, ah…” she tried to remember what she’d planned to say. “I have a weapon in need of modification.”

“Modification?” The weapons specialist’s eyes narrowed as he looked up from his work.

“Um…”

He grunted. “Just show me the weapon.”

Iona put the saber on the table and the strange alien’s eyes widened excitedly. He picked it up and began turning it over in his hands, looking at it with a practiced eye. “Incredible! I haven’t seen a saber in years! Huh,” he paused and looked her in the eye. “Except that travesty our great and terrible leader is swinging around.”

Iona looked at him questioningly.

“You haven’t seen Ren’s saber?”

She shook her head.

“Huh. Lucky.” He held out her weapon in the palm of one hand. “These things are powered by crystals. There’s a few different kinds, but what they all do is channel energy. The Force. I imagine you’d know a little about that.” He looked at Iona penetratingly.

“Mr. Kylo Ren knows how sabers work, and he wants his own. A brand-new, custom one, completely unique.” He chuckled. “Had to build it himself because I wouldn’t touch the thing. His big idea is a design as old as sabers themselves. I told him, ‘there’s a reason that design hasn’t been seen in centuries, as you’ll find out when it explodes.’ But that’s his idea. Some philosophy about unconstrained power and all that hokey. Anyway, the crystal in his saber is cracked. I suppose you’d expect that to keep it from working, but instead, what it does, it creates extra channels - extra sources of energy. Put that in the same container you’d put an unbroken crystal in, and you’ve got all this extra energy looking for someplace to go. Makes the blade a lot ‘hotter,’ so to speak, and the aim less precise, and on top of that it’s gotta have vents or the casing’ll just shatter.” He stopped with a look of scorn.

“But this - “ he gestured at Iona’s saber with renewed enthusiasm - “This is a real weapon. Where’d you ever get it?”

Iona looked the weapons specialist over. He looked impressed with her, an idea that pleased her more than she’d have expected. She thought she might as well tell the truth.

“I stole it.”

“Huh. No kidding. From where?”

“From a scavenger on Frangda.”

“Frangda?!”

When Iona nodded, he chuckled, shaking his head.

“No kidding.

“Well, lady, here I go by Mech. What do I call you?”

“Iona.” She shook his hand. “You don’t have a name?”

The noise he made in response was absolutely incomprehensible. He grinned at Iona’s look of alarm. “It’s a little hard for some people to pronounce.

“So, what do you want to do with this saber?”


End file.
